Violence and sex. Sex and violence. These two hot topics have provoked many bloody debates over the past couple of decades, and have continued to captivate society. Whether it is in the media, the music, or in the movies, people have analyzed and disputed the use of violence and sex time and time again. However, the truth is that our culture thrives on this discourse. Sex sells. The war on Iraq is broadcast on CNN twenty four hours a day. Sexually violent content in the arts is as much of an influence on society as it is a reflection of our times. The controversy it generates demands that we question whether sex and violence in the arts is harmful, or whether it is disturbing for people because it is representational of the reality that we live in. Two of the more controversial types of films are slasher flicks and hard core pornography. When The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974, a new genre of films was born; the slasher film, and the genre was heavily criticized for it’s excessive use of gore and mindless violence, especially violence against women. The franchise was as underground as it was mainstream, and its popularity continues to thrive in the present day, with sequels to Halloween and Friday the 13th being released just last year. The “Golden Age” of pornography was also in the 1970’s. Big budget hard core porn became more accessible to the public, and also became more explicit in its use of sex and violence, with movies such as Deep Throat sparking controversy over its blatant degradation of women. By the 1980’s, slasher flicks had reached their peak in production, and with the rise of video games and music videos, the concern over the effects of violence increased. In the meantime, the billion dollar porn industry was undergoing a backlash as women began to speak out about their experiences in the porn film. The dispute over pornography increased; not only were people concerned with what went on in front of the camera, but were also becoming more aware of what women went through off screen as well. Both slasher films and hard core pornography have undergone much criticism over the years for it’s use of sex and violence against women and the impact this could have on society. Both genres function in similar ways and share many characteristics, particularly in the way women are viewed. Though they share many common aspects, they also differ in regards to the overall influence they have on the individual. By comparing and contrasting the use of sex and violence against women in slasher films and hard core pornography, we will attempt to decide whether these films are harmful and whether they deserve to be criticized and persecuted.

The slasher film has come to be defined by a number of basic characteristics. A group of adolescents are terrorized by a masked or deformed male psychotic killer and are killed off one by one in various gruesome ways until only one survivor remains who defeats the killer, or at least until the sequel. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre established this narrative, and has been the basis for slasher films throughout the eighties such as: Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday The 13th. The genre continued it’s popularity throughout the nineties with films such as Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The production value is very low, relying on cheap locations, a no name cast, low budget camera work and cheesy effects, basically guaranteeing a profit at the box office because of the low investment into the films. The survivor at the end of the film is always a female, or who Carol Clover defines as the “final girl”[1]. She, alone, must defeat the killer at the end of the film after being chased, wounded and tortured while watching each of her friends die by her side. She is considered to be a “good girl”, smart, responsible, vulnerable and is not as sexually active as her peers. Stylistically, the slasher flick is filmed in a way that objectifies the final girl. The most infamous shot is the point of view shot from the killer. For instance the opening sequence of Halloween is shot entirely from the killer’s point of view. We watch through his eyes as he mounts the stairs, knife in hand, sees his half naked sister brushing her hair, and then kills her. By placing the audience in the position of the killer we are allowed in a privileged, intimate killing situation and the female is at a more vulnerable disadvantage. This voyeuristic camera work creates the misogyny found in slasher films, for the male viewing audience is allowed to be in a sadistic position. Pinedo quotes another feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey when discussing this particular system of viewing in slasher films, how “the victims are positioned through the male gaze as objects of sexual investigation: surveyed and eroticized before they are killed”[2]. The way in which a woman looks and how she is viewed creates the link between sex and violence in the slasher film. The film Scream was incredibly influential in the way it addressed the stereotypes of slasher films and transcended the so-called “rules” of the genre because the final girl Sydney survives in the end despite having sexual relations. At one point a character in Scream states that: “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance: 1. You can never have sex. The minute you get a little nookie–you’re as good as gone. Sex always equals death.”[3]. The final girl, the good girl, survives in the end of the film because she does not have sex, remaining a virgin throughout the course of the film. For instance in Halloween, Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is the single, responsible babysitter unlike her friends who are off having fun with their boyfriends. Michael Myers, the stalking, psychotic, killer, gruesomely murders all of her friends, and in the end Laurie must fight him on her own. Laurie remains sexually inactive throughout the film, compared to her friends who are killed off after they have sex. The females, however, are always eroticized before they are killed, thus linking sex with violence against women in the slasher film. Before the female is killed, the P.O.V shot is used to place the audience in the killer’s position. The male audience experiences voyeuristic sadistic pleasure as the killer stalks his prey, spying on the female who is generally clad in skimpy clothes. For example in Halloween, Laurie’s friend Annie spills oil all over her clothes. We watch her over the shoulder of Michael Myers, as she strips off all her clothes and puts on a loose, button down shirt. We continue to watch from his point of view as he stalks her around the house until he finally murders her in a car, still half naked. His next victim is Laurie’s other friend, Linda. After watching Linda and her boyfriend have sex, Michael Myers kills her boyfriend in the kitchen, and then goes back to the bedroom wearing a sheet like a ghost costume. Linda, believing him to be her boyfriend, taunts him by exposing her breasts. When she receives no reaction, she becomes bored and phones Laurie. Michael Myers then comes behind her and proceeds to strangle her, half naked, with the telephone cord. Laurie listens to her choke to death over the phone, but because the choking sounds like Linda is having sex, and Laurie assumes she is playing a trick on her. The connection between sex and death is made very clear in these two examples from Halloween. The male viewer is allowed in the voyeuristic position of the killer, and when he sees the naked female body the woman is punished for being sexual. While the females are eroticized before they are punished, the final girl shares a slightly different relationship with the monster. In Linda Williams’ essay “When The Woman Looks”, she examines the way the woman “looks” in horror films and what happens when she is granted the power of the gaze. The look, or the “gaze” is the classic horror shot; a close up reaction shot of the female screaming. When the “good girl” is granted the power of the gaze, she is punished, and it is this look that establishes her relationship between the monster and the audience, as it transforms the female into a “masochistic fantasy”[4]. When the monster looks at the female, he experiences what Laura Mulvey describes as “castration anxiety” [5]. When the monster gazes at the woman, he sees a mutilated version of his own body and believes that she acknowledges this distortion of her own image, and this drives the monster to punish her. When the woman looks at the monster, she is horrified because she not only sees a monster, but she recognizes their similar threat to patriarchy, for their relationship is unique in such a way to threaten the male ego. The look between a woman and the monster reveals the power of “nonphallic sexuality”[6]. The final girl is denied sexual pleasure throughout the film, and when she recognizes that they are both “freaks”, she must be punished for looking and posing a threat to male masculinity. Since the male views the female through the eyes of the killer, he experiences both the feeling of castration anxiety and the threat to male potency that the female projects. When the female is being punished, the release of this tension within the male viewer gives him sadistic pleasure.

The female gaze is equally as important in the genre of hard core pornography and both genres share common aspects that focus the gaze of the film onto the female. Similarly to slasher films, the production value of hard core porn is extremely low. In the two films examined, The Dark Room and Torment, the mise-en-scene and camera work were extremely low budget. In the first part of Torment, it appears as though it was shot hand held on video, like a home movie, while the second part of the film took place in the storage room of a film studio. Straight porn films obviously do not need to concentrate on strong narratives, good camera work or expensive sets, for they will make a profit as long as they accomplish the one main goal of hard core pornography; sadistic voyeurism and the female gaze.

According to Berkeley Kaite, there are three corresponding looks of the female model in straight, hard core pornography: the look of pleasure, the look that is directed at the genitals, and the female’s involvement with the camera/viewer [7]. These three looks create the same relationship between the male viewer and the objectified female body as the gaze in slasher films. The look of pleasure is similar to the gaze of the final girl when she reacts to seeing the monster, a close up shot that “simulates sexual ecstasy and is signified by closed eyes, open mouth, and head tilted back”[8]. A close up of a female screaming during an orgasm is very much like the close up of a female screaming in fear. The face of the female is always well exposed to accentuate this look and is similarly highlighted in slasher films, by first revealing the close up of the horrified female to emphasize the gaze. The audience’s fear is heightened not in view of the monster but because of the female’s reaction to the monster and the relationship it creates. The female face in hard core porn is never covered by a mask or hidden in shadow, for much of the pleasure of viewing is constructed by seeing her facial reaction: “the emphasis here is on the feminine look of pleasure produced, and passion consumed” [9]. For example, in the hard core porn film The Dark Room in the first segment, the film would cut between a close up of the face of the dominatrix and a close up of her “victim”; a female strapped in a circular contraption that pins back her limbs. However, the male “victim” is more removed from the scene and stands in the shadows and we never see a close up of his face. His face is never “given diegetic dominance; when it is figured at all (and more often it is not), it bears either the look of amused or bored detachment or combinations of pain and ecstasy”[10]. In hard core pornography, the male’s face is shot in a very different way in contrast to the female in order to maximize voyeuristic male identification. In The Dark Room, the male viewer experiences the enjoyment of watching the dominatrix giving pleasure and the “victim” receiving pain, without the interference of the male model’s gaze. The dominatrix takes the role of the powerful male, and allows the male spectator to watch both women gaze at each other without experiencing any feelings of homoeroticism. If there are two men in the same scene as a woman, the men are portrayed through what Kaite describes as the “genital look”[11]; they are signified by their genitals. Men and woman look at each other’s genitals and woman and woman can share the same look, however two men will never share a look with each other. This would threaten the voyeuristic gaze, because it is “essentially autoerotic: its object is the subject’s own body”[12] and when a man’s genitals are shown, the male viewer experiences narcissistic pleasure. He envisions a “fragmented vision/version of his own body, usually seen in conjunction with the female’s facial signifiers of pleasure”[13]. This can be compared with the sadistic voyeuristic position that a male viewer holds when he watches a slasher film, and how he is allowed to be part of the female gaze through the eyes of the killer. This leads into the final “look” that Kaite defines as the “direct address” look, when only the female is permitted to directly look into the camera and address the viewer[14]. For instance in The Dark Room, the film begins with an extreme close up of the face of a dominatrix who looks directly into the camera and says: “They call me mistress, and they do what I please. Come into my dark room and experience the pleasure of my world”. By using this opening shot, the boundaries between subject and viewer are immediately broken. By having the male “victim” watching in the shadows, it suggests a certain code of behaviour for the audience to follow. This system of looks is constructed identically in the slasher film. As discussed earlier, the male viewer is invited into a voyeuristic position where he can experience the gaze of the female. The killer’s face is always masked or deformed in the slasher film, just as the male face is never objectified in the porn film. Michael Myers wears a hockey mask, Freddy Krueger’s face is burned, the face of the fisherman killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer is hidden within the shadows of his hooded raincoat. By removing the killer’s reaction completely, the male viewer is permitted sole viewing pleasure of the female. In the second part of The Dark Room entitled “Taylor’s Exam”, the male stands in the dark while the dominatrix “examines” her female patient. When the male enters the scene to penetrate the female, his whole face is covered with a leather mask. This whole dynamic of the masked male penetrating the female is the same phallic motif used in the slasher film when the masked killer descends upon the female victim to penetrate her with his weapon.

The use of weapons in slasher films and the use of sex toys in hard core porn films are the more literal images that link sex and violence against women. Weapons are used as important symbols of patriarchal control in slasher films. Clover notes that the preferred weapons of killers are not guns, but “pretechnological” weapons such as knives, hammers, and axes because they are “personal, extensions of the body that bring attacker and attacked into primitive, animalistic embrace”[15]. For example, in Halloween, Michael Myers attacks his victims with a huge butcher knife. The fact that the ideal weapon is a knife and not a gun, suggests the need to have physical contact with the victim, to feel the knife penetrating through their body and to feel them squirm and hear them scream before they die. The knife is very much a phallic symbol, and it represents the patriarchal need to dominate and exert power. The sex toys in pornography are a strong connecting factor between sex and violence as well. Similarly to how the woman is punished for being sexual in the slasher film, the female in hard core porn is punished for being sexual as well. The women wear collars, which are a symbol of ownership or control, and are usually dominated by a “mistress” such as in The Dark Room, who takes on the role of the dominating male. The females are also clad in leather, which “shares an affinity with objects that are used as weapons”[16], such as the whip. Woman will use any number of “weapons” on each other or will order a male to do so, and this includes, whips, handcuffs and other forms of bondage, as well as dildos and butt plugs, which can be seen as extensions of the human body. These “weapons” are used against the female similarly to how they are used to punish the women in slasher films for being sexual. For instance, in Torment, while spanking her female “victim”, the mistress asks if she’s been a bad girl, and when she says yes, the mistress whips her behind and asks if she likes it. This not only links sex and violence, but it associates the pleasure of sex and violence against the woman. Another “weapon” used in hard core pornography is the shoe. According to Kaite, the stiletto shoe is a fetish that is threatening because a woman wearing spike heels is a dangerous image[17]. Once again, it represents an extension of the body, it is hard and slender, yet the heel can also create castration anxiety within the male. As in slasher films, the male experiences anxiety because the female is castrated, and the stiletto is a “continual seductive reminder of this”[18] for it has the power to cut, and to penetrate. The shoe evokes a castration anxiety that is similar to that felt in the slasher film. When the male looks at the fetish, he feels anxiety because he senses the possibility for the mutilation of his penis. Although he is aroused, he is also threatened, thus driving him to penetrate the woman, and punish her. The weapons used in both slasher and porn films are important because they literally link the use of sex and violence against woman.

By examining the film I Spit On Your Grave, we can see how it draws from both the slasher film and the hard core porn film in the way it uses sex, violence, and the female body. The film is very low budget, with rough camera work, a simple location and no name actors. The final girl in the film is Jennifer, a young woman who decides to leave the city and finish writing her book at a remote cottage. One day, while sunbathing in her canoe, a group of rednecks attack her. They take turns raping and abusing her in the forest. When she finally stumbles back home, they are waiting there to rape and abuse her again. The second half of the movie is about Jennifer’s revenge. She seduces each of the men who raped her and kills them. The film is disturbing “because of its perverse simplicity”[19]. The raw camera work creates the illusion of reality, which is very disturbing when there are scenes with graphic sex and violence; we see full nudity, blood and the full penetration of both penis and weapon. The film is very vulnerable in the sense that it doesn’t attempt to hide anything. The rapes and murders all occur in broad daylight, which is against the norm for slasher films. The monster(s) in the film are the rednecks, and are “normal”, for “their brutality is not traced to dysfunctional upbringing”[20]. The film is shocking because of this realistic and familiar quality, yet this rape/revenge film also brings together many aspects of both slasher and hard core porn films. For instance, Jennifer is the objectified final girl. As she lies sun tanning in her canoe in a very skimpy bikini, we are thrusted into the point of view of the rednecks who are spying on her from the forest. This is the sadistic voyeurism used in slasher films, as the “monsters” scope out the vulnerable, eroticized female site. When they drag her into the forest, we are confronted by close ups of her terrified, anguished face. She is being punished for looking and because of her sexuality. At one point Johnny, one of the rednecks, says; “you deserve it, you knew everyone could see you prancing around in that tiny bathing suit of yours”, therefore punishing her for arousing him. The men experience castration anxiety when they see her body, and they must try to overcome this anxiety through force to prove their masculinity. When the men are raping Jennifer, the scene is shot in a very external way, it is mostly filmed in long shots with no close ups of the males. As in hard core porn, the men never share the look with each other. Although they are standing around Jennifer and watching each other rape her, it avoids any feelings of homoeroticism by displacing it onto the redneck name Matthew, the mentally challenged virgin of the group. They cheer him on, and the gang rape scene resembles more of a male sport. The men commit the rape “more for each other’s edification than for physical pleasure”[21]. The dynamic of the male group invites masochistic male spectatorship, for the male viewer is allowed to participate in the group event and can gaze at the female site uninterrupted. By portraying Matthew as the inexperienced male, the rest of the group is able to compare their masculinity through him. By raping and beating Jennifer, they prove their heterosexual masculinity. For the male spectator, he experiences the narcissistic pleasure found in hard core porn. Since he is able to be in a voyeuristic position, he too compares himself through Matthew and can experience the pleasure of domination and control.

Although the first half of I Spit On Your Grave shares many characteristics with the hard core porn film in the way looks are constructed to maximize the voyeuristic enjoyment of sex and violence against the female, the second half of the film is strongly reminiscent of the slasher film. After Jennifer recovers from her ordeal, she decides to seek revenge on the rednecks who violated her. The connection between sex and violence is heightened in the way Jennifer kills the “monsters”. First she seduces Matthew and hangs him from a tree. The way in which she kills him is a direct reflection of the damage he inflicted on her. He was unable to penetrate her, and his “limp hanging” is a symbolic reference to his inability to sustain an erection. The second redneck she kills is Johnny, and at first she holds him at gunpoint and orders him to take off his pants. However, she then decides to bring him back to her place where she seduces him in the bathtub. As she gives him a hand job, he says “God bless your hands, that’s so sweet…that’s so sweet it’s painful” and at that moment she picks up a large knife and cuts off his penis, leaving him to bleed to death. She literally castrates him using the phallic, masculine weapon. By using a knife instead of a gun, it reflects the need to penetrate the victim, and how “a hands-on knifing answers a hands-on rape in a way that a shooting, even a shooting preceded by a humiliation, does not”[22]. She punished him in the same way he punished her, because of the sexual threat they invoked. This film draws together the major elements of slasher and hard core porn films and illustrates the powerful connection between sex and violence against the female, and what she must do to empower and defend herself.

After examining I Spit On Your Grave, one can understand how a male spectator views slasher and porn films, through masochistic voyeurism. This has created much controversy for it brings into question whether slasher and porn films influence men to be sexually aggressive towards woman. I Spit On Your Grave draws upon the idea of the rape myth, scenarios that show women receiving sexual pleasure from rape, which is a common theme in hard core pornography. It is important to note however, that Jennifer never displays any looks of pleasure while she is being raped, and “expresses nothing but protest, fear and pain”[23]. However, throughout the film, the rednecks say that she deserves to be raped for sun tanning in her bikini, and Johnny says that “she really liked it” and believes that she is coming back for more. Scenes in films such as this can have an enormous impact on the attitudes males develop towards females and sex: “the more they see, the more likely they are to believe that woman really enjoy rape and prefer force in sex”[24]. Neil Malamuth conducted a study at UCLA, where he exposed male subjects to ten minutes of hard core pornography where women were being aggressed. He found that they were much more willing to accept these rape myths, such as “woman who wear provocative clothing are putting themselves in a place to get raped”[25]. Not only were these subject more accepting of myths about why a woman should be raped, but they also believed that she found pleasure in being raped. After being shown a sexually violent film in which a woman is turned on by being raped, the study showed that after five minutes of exposure, normal males believed that twenty five percent of the woman they knew would enjoy being raped[26]. With results such as these, allowing the male in the sadistic voyeuristic position can be a harmful influence. The way the looks are constructed in hard core pornography are very powerful, and effectively focus on objectifying the female and creating a certain intimacy with the male spectator. When a former rapist was asked why he raped women, he responded by saying: “….because I am basically as a male, a predator and all women look to men like prey. I fantasize about the expression on a woman’s face when I “capture” her and she realizes she cannot escape. It’s like I won, I own her”[27]. The look that this former rapist is alluding to is the exact close up shot of the female gaze that is emphasized in slasher and hard core porn. If these films objectify the female gaze in this way, can it be harmful because of the pleasure it evokes? Neil Malamuth conducted another study that examined sexual arousal. He found that fifty to sixty percent of the male students who participated showed some degree of sexual arousal when watching a rape scene in which the victim showed enjoyment. However, only ten percent of his subjects were sexually aroused by extreme, gory violence where there was very little sexual content[28]. Thus, if hard core pornography is more sexually arousing for men than a slasher film, there is a chance that watching pornography will have a stronger influence on their behaviour. The fact that pornography is used as ejaculation material subconsciously conditions men to associate rape with arousing female images[29]. The sadistic voyeurism that pornography allows creates a connection that is more harmful than the voyeurism found in slasher films because of the ejaculation conditioning. Men are more likely to use pornography as ejaculation material than a slasher flick, for hard core pornography is built on fantasy and desire, and glorifies the content. Slasher films also release tension, but serve a different function. They are not “built” on fantasy, but reflect society, for “realism is the key factor that differentiates slashers from their predecessors in horror”[30]. The Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, (which was considered the first “true” slasher film), was based on a book by Robert Bloch about a real killer and a corpse thief named Ed Gein. The film horrified audiences because it had brought the monster into their home, and revealed the ugliness of society and the monster it had created. Robin Wood discusses this act of repression and the function of horror films in his article “An Introduction to the American Horror Film”. His theory is that whatever bourgeois idealism cannot accept or threatens their “normality”, such as sexuality, homesexuality, drugs, feminism, race; is repressed[31]. He suggests that whatever society represses is projected onto the Other and will come back as the monster. The monster therefore must be either destroyed or assimilated in order for normality to be restored, and society settles back into a state of repression[32]. By using the theory of the Other to examine the slasher film, the genre becomes more than a simple excuse to display violence and gore. The slasher film appeals to teenagers and their confusing feelings towards sexuality, friends, drugs and other adolescent experiences that are often repressed within society. By allowing teenagers into the voyeuristic position of the killer, they are able to release their feelings of tension. When the spectator releases tension while watching a slasher flick, they unleash desires that already exist and it is contained within the film, in comparison with hard core pornography where the tension is released externally and is built on uncensored fantasy.

The external factor of hard core pornography is harmful to women in other ways as well. One of the concerns that arose concerning hard core pornography, was not only the amount of sex and violence inflicted on the women onscreen, but the harm that was occurring off screen as well. The most famous scenerio is the Linda “Lovelace” Marchiano case. She became famous after starring in Deep Throat, the most commercially successful porn film about a woman whose clitoris was in her throat. Her testimony about the abuse she endured on the set of the film brought about a whole new awareness regarding violence against women. She describes how she was “pimped, pushed around and forced to make Deep Throat”[33]. Although the film does not portray rape or violence, Marchiano’s testimony reveals how “it is really a documentary of her rape from beginning to end”[34]. In addition to indirectly conditioning the male viewer to harm women, pornography is also directly harmful to women because they are literally being abused on set. The issue of whether a female is actually being stabbed in a slasher film is not a concern. When The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was first released, people questioned its validity, and a myth was created that it was a real documentary of the event. However, the rumours were quickly discouraged for the film “is essentially harmless and remains an excellent example of how gullible people can be, how they adapt their reality to suit erroneous information offered to them as fact”[35]. There is still apprehension, however, with the objectification of the female in slasher films, and the violence used against them. Despite the fact that the female is degraded throughout the course of the film, it is always the final girl who is left as the sole survivor. She has watched in horror as her friends have been mutilated and tortured to death, and she is left alone to defeat the monster. Thus the female is empowered such as in I Spit On Your Grave, for Jennifer successfully avenges herself against those who have harmed her. Even though she must take on a patriarchal role to do so, she does not kill for any “deep psychological reasons, the punishment fits the crime and the law of retribution is fulfilled”[36]. She uses the hands that patriarchy has presented her with and applies them in the same way that they were used to violate her. Another scenario is when a man at the end saves the final girl. In Halloween, Michael Myers chases Laurie throughout the entire third act. She fights and defends herself well, defeating him at first. However he does not die, and rises once more to kill her. At that moment, the psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis shoots Michael Myers and saves Laurie. Although her power is taken away, it is still a positive reflection of patriarchy, for the woman is saved by the man who protects her from further harm. In the most modern slasher film Scream, the female completely empowers herself by killing the monster without depending on the male to save her. At the end, Sidney shoots the killer. When he doesn’t die and rises from the ground, Gale Weathers (a news reporter) rescues Sidney and shoots him. At that moment the police officer Dewey stumbles through the door; too late and is no longer needed for the women defended themselves on their own. This positive female empowerment is never shown in hard core pornography. The women abuse each other, or command men to be aggressive towards another woman. In Torment, the dominatrix female orders the other woman to crawl around the floor while whipping her, and in The Dark Room the dominatrix orders the man to “fuck her hard” while spanking the victimized female. The women in pornography never gain power unless it is through a patriarchal role for the sole purpose of enhancing male viewing pleasure.

At first glance, slasher films and hard core pornography have many common elements. They both are very low budget, cheap forms of filmmaking whose main goal is to objectify the female. The most important aspect that they share is the sadistic voyeurism created for the male spectator, and the way in which the system of looks is constructed to exemplify the woman. The male is allowed to release feelings of castration anxiety and experience narcissistic pleasure by observing the female being punished for her sexuality. By examining the film I Spit On Your Grave, we can see how all these elements come into play, and furthers the discussion of the impact these films have on men. Is masochistic voyeurism a dangerous position? According to studies, men are influenced more from the voyeurism permitted in porn versus the voyeurism in slasher films. Not only does it influence the way they think, but it can also provoke and condition harmful behaviour. Hard core pornography in the end serves a different function than the slasher film. Pornography is built on fantasy, whereas slasher films are a reflection of the society we live in. While both genres are a site to release tension, slasher films are contained while pornography is externalized, and this is more harmful for women. Females in slasher films are empowered, whereas women in pornography are abused both on and off screen. Although, both genres share many similarities, pornography is much more harmful to women because of the way the male spectator is manipulated, and therefore should be censored and persecuted for the effect of the sex and violence it uses against women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pornography and Sexual Violence. London. Everywoman Ltd: 1988

Clover, Carol. “Getting Even”. Sight and Sound. May 1992 p. 16, 17

Clover, Carol “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film”. The Dread Of Difference. University of Texas Press: 1996.

Greetings & salutations! My name is Paula and I love to write, eat brains, watch scary movies and make fake blood. I'm always on the lookout for my next adventure, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse.